Duckworth praised for stance on abortion

EMILY'S List backs congressional hopeful

May 12, 2006|By Jeff Zeleny and John Biemer, Tribune staff reporters. Jeff Zeleny reported from Washington and John Biemer from Chicago.

WASHINGTON — Tammy Duckworth, the Democratic hopeful in Illinois' west suburban 6th Congressional District, was extolled here Thursday by one of the nation's most influential abortion-rights groups as the candidate to replace retiring Republican Rep. Henry Hyde, whom the organization depicted as the "leading anti-choice zealot" in Congress.

"Wouldn't you just love to put this brave, courageous woman in the seat of Henry Hyde?" said Ellen Malcom, president of EMILY's List, a grass-roots network that gives political and financial backing to Democratic women candidates who support abortion rights.

A luncheon fundraising audience of more than 1,100 applauded vigorously as Malcom described Duckworth's campaign as one of the most critical of the year.

EMILY's List plans to contribute $11 million to Democratic women across the country. But for abortion-rights advocates, there are fewer members of Congress more controversial than Hyde, who sponsored the law that ended federal funding for abortion.

Although Duckworth did not dwell on her support for abortion rights in a speech, she told the crowd that her opponent, state Sen. Peter Roskam of Wheaton, would be more "extreme" than Hyde.

"In my own district, the other party has tapped a candidate who not only wants to succeed Henry Hyde," Duckworth said, "he wants to exceed Henry Hyde when it comes to pushing an extreme right-wing agenda."

Duckworth, a former Army major from Hoffman Estates who lost both legs in combat in Iraq, was one of several congressional candidates from across the country featured Thursday. Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.) was there, but only Duckworth was asked to deliver a speech as she introduced keynote speaker Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Roskam spokesman Ryan McLaughlin said Duckworth's speech "before one of most radical groups in the nation should alarm voters.

"The fact that she has aligned herself with a group that supports partial-birth abortion and tax-funded abortions reinforces the point that a fellow Democrat [in her primary race] called her views `out of touch with the district's parents,'" he said.

Roskam supports abortion only when the mother's life is endangered. He has been a staunch abortion opponent in the state legislature, sponsoring bills to make late-term abortions illegal and require minors to notify their parents before undergoing the procedure.

Duckworth has called abortion a "wrenching decision" but supports abortion rights and opposes parental notification. She supports late-term abortions "only in cases where the life or the health of the mother is in jeopardy," said her spokesman, Billy Weinberg.

At a news conference following the luncheon, Duckworth pledged that if elected, she would oppose the funding of all pet projects, known as earmarks, even if they would benefit her constituents. The projects have come under fire by fiscal conservatives, led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who believe spending is out of control.

"If something is important enough for the district, it is important enough to go through the budget process," Duckworth said.

Obama delivered a blistering critique of the Bush administration in his speech, reserving his sharpest points for the handling of the Iraq war.

"This idea that somehow if you say the words `plan for victory' and `stay the course' over and over and over and over again," Obama said, "and you put these subliminal messages behind you that say `victory' and `victory' and `victory,' that somehow people are not going to notice the 2,400 flag-draped coffins that have arrived at the Dover Air Force Base."